Daily News | Lori QuallsHerm Gieseler, right, and Tony Iafrate talk Wednesday in Gieseler’s Midland home after the retired teacher gave Iafrate a school project he left in the classroom 30 years ago.

Daily News | Lori QuallsHerm Gieseler, right, and Tony Iafrate talk Wednesday in Gieseler’s Midland home after the retired teacher gave Iafrate a school project he left in the classroom 30 years ago.

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Tony Iafrate cast the aluminum handle for this hunting knife for a high school project. His name is written on the yellowed masking tape, put there 30 years ago by his teacher, Herm Gieseler.

Tony Iafrate cast the aluminum handle for this hunting knife for a high school project. His name is written on the yellowed masking tape, put there 30 years ago by his teacher, Herm Gieseler.

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Sanford man takes home school project — 30 years later

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Tony Iafrate finally was able to take home a school project he made while in machine shop 30 years ago at Midland High School.

His teacher, Herm Gieseler, recently found the aluminum-handled knife, which he had kept over the years in his garage. The two men were reunited Wednesday, and Iafrate came away with the knife and Gieseler with the satisfaction of mission accomplished.

“There it is with my name on the top and everything,” Iafrate said when Gieseler handed him the knife. A piece of yellowed masking tape, now brittle, was wrapped around the blade with Iafrate’s name written on it.

“It looks like I did a good job on it,” Iafrate said, looking at the handle. “Do you remember what kind of grade I got on the knife?”

Gieseler chuckled, and said he did not.

Iafrate said he cast the aluminum handle for the five-inch hunting knife to replace one that had broken. He said he was 15 at the time attending H.H. Dow High School and would take a shuttle bus to Midland High for the machine class.

It turned out Iafrate, of Sanford, was part of the last class Gieseler taught before retiring in 1982, after 39 years of teaching. Gieseler, who is 96 and 5 months old, said he took the knife home with him when he packed up his classroom. He said he had tried over the years to get the knife back to his student, even traveling to Iafrate’s family home several times.

“I tried calling him up, I could never get him,” Gieseler said, then looked at Iafrate, “I even took it over to your house two to three years later but could never catch you home.”

During a 90-minute conversation at Gieseler’s home, which he built overlooking the Tittabawasee River, the teacher was able to refresh his student on how the handle was made, giving precise step-by-step detail. The two also talked about their families, traveling, hunting, nature, lawnmower repair and even politics. While sitting in front of the wall of windows that overlook the Tittabawasee, Iafrate told Gieseler he remembers riding his bike on the river’s frozen surface and seeing fish beneath the ice.

Iafrate told his teacher he didn’t take a second year of shop because Gieseler retired. He also said he would stop by again to visit with his teacher.

“You were a good teacher,” Iafrate told Gieseler. He told Gieseler that the precision he demanded in class helped him learn the importance of detail, which he practices today in his work whether for his job as pressroom foreman at the Midland Daily News or when building something in his garage.